


Moon in your eyes, stars in our bones

by GwenChan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Miscommunication, Prophetic Dreams, Reincarnation, Single POV, Slavic Mythology & Folklore - Freeform, Unreliable Narrator, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 00:21:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16418864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan
Summary: Near future. In a world where soulmates exist and are based on touch and childhood memories, astrophysicist Katsuki Yuuri, plagued by mysterious dreams about the moon, ends up working with genius - and his idol - Victor Nikiforov.  For Yuuri it’s more than he could bargain for, even if all of his hopes of having Victor as soulmate were crushed in a single handshake. Little does Yuuri know there is more to Victor than meets the eye, in a mysterious connection rooting in the beginning of the universe.In the meanwhile, a mysterious black hole has appeared in the skies over Europe.





	Moon in your eyes, stars in our bones

**Moon in your eyes, stars in our bones**

"I had that dream again," 

It’s the first thing Yuuri says, on an a regular, mid-western evening as he plugs in his headphones.

The apartment Yuuri still shares with his best friend and fellow colleague Phichit Chulanont is dark apart from the bluish luminescence emanating from the laptop monitor. Phichit works in his same laboratory, a brilliant mind during his first internship, but where Yuuri has dedicated his soul to plasma and what lies beyond the solar system, Phichit prefers to stay closer to Earth.

Minako Okukawa - Yuuri’s mentor since he can first remember - is on the other side of the call, but her voice comes in broken pieces, the audio low and raspy. Her face is reduced to a bunch of blurred pixels, promising to give him an headache if stared at for to long. 

Diverting his gaze, Yuuri waits for the connection to stabilise. The Dark Shape in the Sky, for lack of a better name, may not have effect on the living beings’ health, yet, but no doubt it is interfering with electronics. For months already it has loomed over Northern Europe, obliterating every light at night. 

Blogs of self-proclaimed experts and pseudo-scientific articles are popping out everyday claiming it to be a clear sign of the end of the world, the natural consequence of years of Earth exploitation and space pollution; without naming those shouting it to be a divine punishment.

 

The truth is nobody knows anything, apart it is similar to a black hole in behaviour - or it should be, if there wasn't something around it interfering with its action. Nonetheless, as life taught them it’s better be safe than sorry, scientists are advising to be prepared for possible blackouts and power shortage.

 

"The moon dream?" It is a solid five minutes before Minako's question arrives. A soft pink light floods her bar, the old poster publicizing Hasetsu observatory tours barely visible. It must be early dawn in Japan. Yuuri nods, stretching out a hand to brush it against the screen, as if the simple gesture could transport him back home. But instant molecular transferring is a science conquest yet to come. 

 

"Tell me about it," Minako invites, to which Yuuri scratches the back of his head in the attempt to transform into coherent words the images welcoming him at night, so clear as long as he is dreaming, but a nebulous mess the instant he opens his eyes. 

Every other night it's the same old story, so much he goes to sleep already expecting, and partially fearing, the dream. 

In the dream, he is sitting on the moon, looking up, down and around to the infinite dark sky, like he is searching for someone. Around him he can hear nothing but vague rumours, but it sounds like home.

There he is safe and sound, until a darkness too deep to be explained comes to claws the dream apart, forcing Yuuri to wake up in cold sweat, his cheeks sticky with tears of fear and his chest heavy, longing for something he can’t explain. He would think it has something to do with some kind of reincarnation nonsense, hadn't him not been a scientist. But he also lives in a world where soulmates exist and people destined by Fate exchange childhood memories on the first touch.

It defies any logic.

 

"It's been almost two months now," Minako comments eventually, the pixelated video making it impossible to understand her expression. Yuuri hasn't yet decided whether it is making things worse or not.

Whichever his doubts, if the connection keeps lagging he will have to shut off the camera and be satisfied with the hissing, crackling audio.

"I know ..." Yuuri fiddles with the earphones chords, twisting it around his fingers in multiple spires. Maybe, if it hadn't been for the dreams, he wouldn't have made a fool of himself before a whole audience of experts, the most embarrassing episode of his public career since high school.

"You should exit from your laboratory sometimes. It would help," Minako advises with an hint of chastising in her voice. "For real. I want to see some real photos of you outside or I'm coming to drag you out the laboratory personally. Your brain needs fresh air."

Yuuri would have a lot to say about the freshness of city air - or lack thereof - but Minako Oukukawa, the woman who introduced Yuuri to stargazing and astronomy and is probably immortal, is totally capable of taking the first ticket available and fly all the way from Japan to fight his self-imposed isolation.

 

The conversation as usual finishes languishing on questions about how Yuuri's parents and friends are doing, if and how much the Dark Shape is affecting the family hot springs and other general topics which should help in easing Yuuri's nerves but have, in truth, the opposite effect.

In the end, he ends the call more abruptly than he would've liked, the popping sound being almost accusatory. 

 

At least, talking to Minako is easier than speaking with mom and dad, when Yuuri has to pretend the webcam isn't working to not see the compassion on their faces and the way it makes him feel, the knowledge of being a disappointment. His skin still crawls, thinking about how he woke his mother at the break of dawn, biting his lips to not burst into tears.

 

The proof of his defeat is still hung on the wall, at his back. 

Turning halfway in his chair is enough to face it, a single equation in red marker, his pride and his nightmare. Celestino believed it could open the roads and perspective in the search of a solution for for the Fermi-acceleration incognita. Yuuri is more convinced it will be his ticket to abandon the theoretical field and dedicate his life to observe the sky, letting to others the duty to explain the why.

It doesn't sound right though. Watching the sky would never have the same thrill of peering inside the secrets of the universe, the after schools spent with his childhood friends Yuuko and Takeshi over every book of astronomy they could get their hand on, and watching youtube documentaries for hours; as the shining star of a Russian genius boy began to rise. 

 

At age sixteen, Russian prodigy Victor Nikiforov already had articles published in science publications, all of them carefully kept inside a folder in Yuuri's bedroom and when Victor had started to write books, Yuuri had devoured them all. 

He wishes Victor hadn't been there to watch his debacle, albeit only in video-calling. To cross path with him would be too humiliating. 

Failure is part of a research, sometimes even necessary for gaining a new perspective, but spinning in his chair until his head is dizzy, Yuuri wonders how it would be to walk on a path of success, the thrill of having made an outbreaking discovery.

 

He could repeat the formula in rhyme, so many times he has read it and its demonstration, like someone would do with a lover's letter. It contains a deep, powerful, beauty, hidden in every number and symbol, speaking about lighting a flame in the deepest darkness. It reminds Yuuri about why he decided to pursue a career in the field.

 

"Given this, we can assume that the outcome will become this. Indeed, if we ..."

Somewhere in between a "if" and a "thus", Yuuri's chair had stopped spinning, and now stands empty, sent rolling against the opposite wall.

Yuuri moves around the room in circles, his hands moving while imagining a full audience listening to him in awe, no trace in his mind of the stage fear he normally has, even when he is only tutoring undergrad classes.

The equation, instead, is providing him with a well laid-out path, each step leading right into the next in a smoothness solution of continuity, so much reciting the demonstration comes as natural as walking.

When Yuuri focuses back to reality, he is speaking to the fridge, which looks down at him with googly eyes - Phichit's fault - and an old note reminding him the strawberries are going rotten. It's been a week, which reminds Yuuri he should add reminders on his cell phone if he doesn't want to win the prize for worst flatmate of the year. They are also out of milk and a soft greenish mould cover the peaches. The air fills with the stench of rotten strawberries.

 

There, while studying a peach to see if it can be saved, Yuuri considers depression is getting tiring and if he can explain Victor's equation, logic says presenting his own theory on which he spent sleepless nights should be easier. Though, one thing is to speak alone in the comfort of one own room, another to deal with files of experts.

 

But one should start somewhere and, peeling the rotten parts off the peach, juice sticking to his hands, Yuuri's knows exactly where. Or, better, with whom. 

 

 

 

A week later the peaches have encountered the same fate of the strawberries, nobody has bought milk yet, Phichit is threatening to "divorce" him, and Yuuri is reading for the tenth time Yuuko's mail of apologies. Blame it on her triplets to have turned a video meant for her into an Internet phenomenon: millions of visualization in the span of few days, before being deleted; to be reuploaded by a different source in the span of few hours.

Someone else would grab the chance of fame on the whim, diving right into it. Yuuri ponders the possibility to turn his apartment into a laboratory and don't set foot outside for how long it'll take for the bubble to burst. If never, so be it. Which isn't a so distant possibility, judging from views continuous growing number and the plethora of discussions it generated. What they say, Yuuri doesn't know: his social life is dread and Phichit is under swear to never mention it.

 

Grocery shopping, on the other hand, is a different matter, an important one for Phichit, being a terrific combination of vegetarian, loving of all creatures in the world, and passive aggressive when pissed; which means when there's no healthy food and given the content of the fridge, public humiliation doesn't sound so terrible anymore.

 

Besides, setting a laboratory goes well beyond his finances. 

 

The idea is still roaming in Yuuri's head the following day, as he slides his badge under the scan in the entrance hall with mechanic gestures in the still empty laboratory on a Monday morning.

Yuuri slips into the familiar ambience as easily as breaking into an old pair of shoes, from the security guard at the entrance, to the intern at the reception, the tired janitor ... Victor Nikiforov hanging around with a contemplative air and hands clasped behind his back. 

The things lack of sleep and a bad diet can do; the dreams about the moon some nights before, now Victor Nikiforov hallucination, wandering around in skinny jeans and a comfy sweater, head to toe the picture of a god sent on Earth.

Probably, it’s a product of his sleepless nights, nothing a good cup of coffee can’t chase away. 

 

During the break, the lab cafeteria’s shitty coffee plagues Yuuri's mouth with his bitter taste and the threat to do the roller coaster in his stomach, and Victor Nikiforov hasn't disappeared yet; on the contrary, bent over at the reception desk, he seems to be chatting amicably with the intern. To which, Yuuri does the only thing one should do with hallucination: he turns his back at it, heading right to the laboratory to check on the equipment. 

 

"Yuuri, I'm so looking forward to working with you." 

 

Yuuri is turning on the computers when a cheerful voice he’s never heard in person, yet not unfamiliar, so many times Yuuri has heard it on television and in countless YouTube videos, echoing in the air. He raises his head to face Victor standing at the door, looking as real as ever. 

 

Only by sheer luck Yuuri doesn't knock off the table millions worth of equipment in a humiliating fall right on his butt. At least, Victor is an hallucination; a stubborn hallucination, but nothing more. Or Yuuri would've already melted in a puddle of embarrassment. 

 

"Just go away, please," he begs, to which the hallucination responds with a sad face, but obeys nonetheless. 

"I'll come back later."

 

By ten in the morning, the lab has turned into a full bundle of activity, researchers and PhD students exchanging pieces of information from across the room; someone paces around, others hung their head before papers filled with formulas. Yuuri briefly acknowledges his colleagues Guang-Hong and Leo sitting at their station a couple seats from his, before turning back to the 3D virtual model of accelerated particles in a vacuum, which still refuses to behave accordingly to the commands.

Frustration builds up in Yuuri's guts so much it's almost a relief when lab coordinator Cialdini interrupts him with a "You have a visit." 

 

Must be a student with doubts too pressing to wait for the formal meeting hours; but Yuuri has a soft heart, remembering what it means to be an undergrad, stressed and afraid, and he tries his best to be helping. Students on campus seems to have a certain fondness for him, calling him with nicknames when they believe he isn’t listening and crying in frustration because it's easier to demonstrate time-travelling than to convince him to accept a date. 

Anyway, what Cialdini introduces isn't a student by any mean. 

Yuuri almost chokes on thin air, arms suddenly flailing all over, his jaw dropped to the floor, because Victor Nikiforov is standing right before him and, maybe, he isn't an illusion; which means all his dreams of a polite, professional but not excessive serious meeting have popped.

"Victor, what are you doing here?" he still manages to utter, immediately regretting the directness, the rudeness, utterly lack of professionalism.

 

 

"I mean, professor Nikiforov, why, why this ... sudden visit?" he tries to get back on track, but with the strong feeling he’s only digging his grave with each word said. 

"Victor will be fine. And, I told you before, I'm here to work with you. I've read your works about Fermi's injection, I'm sure something wonderful could come from them, with a little help." 

 

It would be easier to listen to him if his eyes and teeth weren't shining like in a toothpaste commercial, to which Yuuri has no better defence than stuck his nails into his sweaty palms, grabbing fistfuls of his lab coats behind his back.

 

"So, are we a team?"

 

As Victor offers him his hand to shake, Yuuri can't help but notice he wears no ring. An old, childhood fantasy makes his fingers twitch before finally accepting the hold.

At first, darkness floods his mind, profound like a black hole where all light dies, a vague luminescence shining purples at the corner of his eyes, before a bright light explodes before his eyes. It's enough to leave him blind for a solid full minute.Yuuri's heart clenches with a sudden sadness and inexplicable nostalgia.

 

"Yuuri?" 

 

Yuuri wraps himself back to the reality of a high tech government laboratory. He is no longer holding Victor's hand, who is standing there and watching, waiting for something Yuuri doesn't know and have no wish to know. 

 

"I'm fine, sorry," Yuuri hastens to assure, fighting against the instinct to divert his gaze, taking a step back to avoid any further touch, "Just some giddiness."

Only the confirmation of how silly he had been to even think Victor Nikiforov, of all people, could be his soulmate.

 

The feeling in his chest is still there but twisted in something grim Yuuri can only name as disappointment, so hard to swallow his throat hurts. Yuuri has to force his lips to smile and his voice to be steady.”

 

“It will be a pleasure to work with you, Victor.”

 

 

 

 

 

At night, Yuuri closes his eyes on the couch with Phichit's favourite Bollywood movie as background noise slowly fading into a deep silence, a quick nap bound to turn into a full, deep sleep. 

Yuuri has told Phichit everything about the day, lifting the ban of speaking about the video, before sets the dinner table, the meal cooked properly for once, smelling of boiled rice and stir-fry vegetables. Phichit jokes, saying it needed Victor Nikiforov and his supposedly godly presence to force Yuuri into refilling the fridge.

 

"So? How is he in person?" Phichit has asked, with eyes lowered on his phone, fingers moving as fast as his tongue.

"Nice, but blunt. Not great at sugar coating. Quite touchy. He insisted on having lunch together."

"The friendly way or more?"

"More," Yuuri can only admit, the word choked at the back of his throat, almost too heavy to be said out loud. He must be getting ahead of himself, mistaking a foreigner kindness and expansiveness for some kind of romantic interest. Still, a part of him keeps on wishing, holding onto tiny details and past experiences; like his parents having a solid, happy marriage, despite not being soulmates. 

Shaking his head at the ridiculous presumption Victor may be interested in him that way, Yuuri opens his eyes, too sleepy to find the strength and return to his bed, and rolls on the other side, glasses askew. Dreams are quick to unroll their usual scenario, enough familiar by now they don’t scare Yuuri anymore.

Before slipping in the REM phase, he hears rain against the window and a distant, anonymous voice ranting about the Dark Shape.

 

There aren't Dark Shapes to cover the moon sky, its clear surfaces of ink embroidered with stars, the Earth a meaningless shape in the distance. The moon people prefer to look above when they feel as to look outside. They never do, though, not with all they need already where they are.

 

There's a tree - or something looking like a tree - under which Yuuri likes to sit, with the stories of their ancestor on the palm of his hand, stories from before the universe popped out from God knows where, before they came to the moon; or maybe even before they came to existence. There are stories about the stars, the foreign stars, brothers and sisters to other people, who speak another language and mostly mind their business.

The moon is mother and sister, bless and sin, the good one and the rejected. But, above all, it's home.

"Home."

 

The word lingers on Yuuri's dry mouth in his doughy awakening in the middle of the night, his back sore for having slept on the couch and his whole body sticky for lack of a shower since the morning before. How ridiculous to cry for a satellite, a lifeless rock, which has never hosted any palace or city or storehouse for all the things lost on Earth; only dry flatland Earthlings liked to call seas and fill with creatures more powerful than them.

All of this Yuuri writes in his dream-notebook, his mind clearer after a shower, sipping on a cup of tea at four in the morning, the window open even if there is too smog, too light pollution to see any celestial body.

 

On the bottom corner of the page, he has doodled the last image he remembers from the dream, a palace tasting like a fairytale. And judging from how much it looks like the Disney logo, Yuuri may be as well confusing visions and memories once again. 

 

Him reading under a tree, that he is sure to have dreamt; no idea, though, if he was reading a real book or something that can be called one. Already the idea of books on the moon is silly. If a civilisation must have existed once on the moon, it's more fun to imagine it being better than humanity; telepathic beings, maybe. 

When Yuuri goes back to sleep, in the attempt to catch those last remnants of sleep before his alarm rings, excitement has come to substitute exhaustion; and the road from from excitement to doubt is a short one, because Victor Nikiforov has no reason to be interested in him. He's only an astrophysicist in training among others, way better than himself, after all.

Yet, Yuuri can't help his heart from beating a bit faster or his cheeks from flustering, because he can still feel the ghost of Victor's hold on his hand and, if he closes his eyes, a familiar light bursts in front of his eyes. 

 

 

The day after Yuuri must admit it was all real. He has even snapped a photo of Victor to be extra sure. 

 

"Yuuri. Finally. I've been waiting for you all morning," Victor all but tackles him as soon as Yuuri crosses the lab threshold, still carrying a folder full of the class group assignments for the day. Finals season is getting near. Which only reminds him he has his own exams to prepare, his essays to write, his researches to pursue.

 

For now, however, he needs to understand how Victor plans to operate; how would a genius like him want to work with a normal mind, apart from the occasional, sudden bursts of inspiration, a light cutting through the fog.

"So," Yuuri begins, munching on a sandwich taken on the fly at the campus canteen, "from where do we start? Methodology?"

 

Victor taps on his lower lip, a tic Yuuri has seen him doing oh so many times on television, and stares at him, almost as if staring into his soul. 

"Well," he says, stepping forward into Yuuri's personal space, "why don't we have a coffee together and you tell me something about you?"

 

Yuuri swallows on dry mouth, taking a step back until the particle accelerator is cutting his back. It doesn't save him from Victor placing two fingers under his chin to lift it up. His legs jump on their own will.

When a star laughs, it does in a rain of light

 

 

"Not a good idea. Busy month," Yuuri refuses, not certain if to be more worried to have almost knocked off expensive equipments or having Victor Nikiforov flirting with him. 

"But I'm working on a virtual model of particles behaviour in a vacuum," he hastens to bring back the whole discourse into more solid, secure scientific borders; where everything has a meaning and Victor is Yuuri’s idol for research merits. Nothing else.

 

"In theory, you could input parameters and have the model do the rest of the work. Phichit helped me with the coding."

"Show me," Victor invites. As soon as Yuuri has taken his seat, switch the computer on, and went over all the security inputs, he hovers over him, a hand firmly placed on Yuuri's shoulder. 

It takes Yuuri three times before managing to type the right password. Victor laughs his "no need to be nervous", but to Yuuri's relief he moves ever so slightly. One by one, windows pop open on the screen.

 

When he moves aside to let Victor takes his place, Yuuri is sure his heart has moved up permanently into his throat.

To watch Victor run through months worth of work is torture, the fear, scratching at the back of his mind, to discover the solution has been something banal all along. 

 

And yet Yuuri can't help but look at Victor's hands brushing on the keyboard, his eyes glueing on the screen, for he can't miss anything if it means having even a glimpse inside Victor's mind.

"Got it," is Victor's final verdict, over two pages full with Russian illegible scribbles, bringing Yuuri back to the long evenings teaching himself the language to read anything of Victor's from its source. "So, what's wrong," he asks with hope in his voice, the same hope Victor has no problem to shatter with the most charming of smiles.

"If I tell you, you wouldn't learn."

Yuuri’s shoulders slump in defeat, a stark contrast to the glimpse of irritation rising in his stomach, the same which helped him navigating through college often out of nothing but spite.

“I thought science worked differently,” his tongue snaps on its own will.

How he wishes he could interpret Victor’s expression, understand what hides behind his seriousness; if the twitch at the corner of his upper lip was pride or amusement.

"Did you re-read the code?" 

Yuuri hums affirmatively. Yes, he went through the whole code. Yes, he checked the starting equation. Yes, he re-installed the software. Yes, he tried with a different computer. No, he doesn't ask anyone else to check it for him. Victor is the first.

"How can you pretend to see differently with the same eyes?" Victor knows no filter, his logic is so impeccable. it hurts. In a different situation, he would've asked at least Phichit for help and expertise, but the injection problem is his whole Ph.D., he needs to - must - do it alone. He knows about loneliness. 

 

Oh, so many nights spent with only stars and numbers as his company, when high school ending loomed around the corner, and his friends already married in soulmate bliss. 

 

"Besides, you aren't a programmer. You should focus on your area of expertise," Victor adds, hitting right at the core of the problem, giving him a bitter but reasonable medicine. 

And for that, Yuuri can't manage to feel offended by being called out before the whole lab like a freshman undergrad.

"I was losing passion in my specialisation," he mutters, tongue heavy with the sleepless nights spent wondering if he was still in time to change PhD path; or if it was worth the effort.

"I see." Victor leans over to shut down the software, gathering all his tiny written notes, "which means we need to get your passion back. Any problems if I use your equipment for my researches?"

 

The last question is for Celestino, who is in charge of the project, but still trusts them enough to use the equipment wisely. 

"Perfect," Victor chirps his approval, shifting toward the supersonic-jet laser spectrometer they have in the lab, preparing and manoeuvring the equipment with expertise. Hadn't it been for the mountain of exams waiting for him, Yuuri would stay there and watch for hours. Watch him sliding between the equipments and the old fashioned white board the lab still keep in a corner, a Sharpie held loosely between index and middle finger, writing and deleting calculus without an apparent logic, until a link suddenly appears and it seems like it has always been there.

 

 

Victor grins with satisfaction, circling a result in red and snapping a picture of the whole board. 

"Yuuri, you know. Sometimes one just needs to start anew."

 

 

Sometimes one just needs to start anew. Victor's advice is still echoing in Yuuri's mind as he walks all the ten flies of stairs up to his apartment, a strange new lightness in his steps. Before leaving the lab, Victor invited him again out for a coffee and, although Yuuri couldn't bring himself to accept, he is walking on cloud nine.

Starting from scratch has always been Victor's prerogative, since when he wasn't in college yet and was already publishing articles about wormholes and the origins of the universe. But for Yuuri finding a road of his own has always been difficult, good in everything, but not excelling in anything.

He flops on the still unmade bed, the room a mess with notes progressively accumulating on the wall until there won't be any space left. It's all so cluttered Yuuri may as well need a map not to get lost in them, in the chaos of half equations, midnight ideas, notes "to not forget". Some scribbles may need a dictionary because Yuuri can't remember what were they supposed to mean, though he can picture himself jerking awake in the middle of the night, scrambling for a pen and a piece of paper.

Some notes speak about his dreams. Those are the first Yuuri unpin, the so many photos of the moon, one by one balled and tossed in the paper bin. 

 

Yuuri takes off everything, throwing away all the notes of which he can't make sense anymore, putting aside in a neat pile what may still be useful. 

Curious and refreshing how, the more the wall clean, re-emerging from months of paper, the more the last remnants of fog still lingering in Yuuri mind dissipates.

 

The last one to be unattached is his own, infamous equation, the red ink smudging against Yuuri's sweaty fingers as he holds the note suspended over the paper bin. How incredible how mere symbols and numbers on squared paper could be translated into something so real to shape life from the core of the universe, as being blind before, and everything becomes clear.

One day, Yuuri dares to hope, his peers will approve his equation, they will write it in every astrophysics books; scenes of future students remembering and studying his name, the way they already study Victor's and all the great minds before him.

The image is so absurd it makes Yuuri's head dizzy, and yet it lingers there, barely out of reach, and from a certain angle it seems almost real. 

 

In the end, throwing away that piece of paper is a liberation.

 

Later, Yuuri lets an emotional Phichit hug him in enthusiast celebration because his best friend has finally decided to accept his help and his coding expertise.

"I'm building Victor a statue," Phichit declares, plugging the pen-drive. Yuuri couldn't agree more.

 

"How was the lesson?"

So Victor greets Yuuri as soon as he walks to their workstation, all the papers from their last session still where they left them, a chaotic pile threatening to fall any time now.

"Interesting topic, boring explanation," Yuuri confesses, his hands already brushing away the memos covering the keyboard enough to type open the spectroscopy database. He can't help but smile at the new software file icon on the desktop, now working perfectly thanks to Phichit and his eyes for misplaced commas.

 

 

When asked what he has been up too, Victor keeps the answer vague. Experiments on dark matter, the little one can do in a campus laboratory. Reading at the campus café. A video conference with some university in Moscow. 

Everything boring, predictable, Victor's tone and expression speak clear.

Only a week since his arrival, Yuuri is already wishing for blindness to not see Victor's beaming like a young lover, albeit there is a shade of melancholy to his smile he can't place every time he spots him, as if they were something more than peers; when the word choice sounds already bold per se.

Many people appear to think the same, wondering in capital letters above more or less professional articles why Nikiforov has abandoned his previous colleagues to transfer onto a middle-sized American campus.

 

To the college newspaper reporter who asked him the same question, Yuuri answered Victor may need a change of environment and perspective. Does he feel lucky? Who wouldn't? Egoistical? Well, it was all Victor's own choice. Is he going to exploit this opportunity? Well, if it means working with one of the best mind ever, yes, he intends to pursue this opportunity. When studying the stars one learns everything and yet nothing happens by chance.

 

"Do you want me to read the data to input?" Victor offers, rummaging through the papers to find a print out excel table filled with neatly written numbers and measurements. 

"It would help." 

There something scary in how quickly they had managed to slip into a routine, so lost in their words of numbers and theories hours tick by on the clock with them barely noticing. If someone interrupts them because Yuuri's help is needed, Victor offers an hand too. 

 

It would be an enormous mistake, however, to mistake Victor's kindness for an absence of criticism in the research field. When the time comes for Yuuri to submit his own ideas to Victor's judgement, Victor expresses it with no qualms or sugarcoating, nipping them in the bud when old or bound to lead into a dead end.

Sometimes it's exhausting, the continuous thinking outside the box, putting everything that came before into discussion, and Yuuri isn't above pursuing an idea just out of pettiness; but the new perspective popping out after hours of brainstorming makes the struggle worthwhile.

As days rolls on the calendar, notes pile up, experiments abound, formulas appear and disappear on the dashboard, while the television set on low in the campus cafeteria broadcasts news of a series of blackouts, spread across the globe, too randomly to connect them with the Dark Shape beyond any reasonable doubt. Yuuri has to fight to avoid his classes degenerate every time into a full-blown debate on the subject.

 

The same efforts Yuuri has to do to not cover everything in moon doodles, the full and the crescent, from the napkins in the cafeteria to random post-it in the lab.

"Mooning?" Victor guesses, grinning at his own joke.

"I thought it was normal in the field," Yuuri jokes back, praying for Victor to not detect the tension in his voice or inquire further, while at the same time wishing for it.

To confess he can't close his eyes for a nap without the moon returning in his dreams, the same nebulous palace, the same feeling of holding the knowledge of all that came before him into his hands.

That everytime Victor touches him, albeit by chance, the same dreams black out his vision. His heart pushing out of his chest is a whole other problem.

"Personally, I prefer the universe," Victor states, scooting with pen and papers to a corner of the table, where he dives right into scribbling pages upon pages of cursive Russian. The response to a peer criticism, he said.

Yuuri murmurs something in reply, as he opens his laptop for he, too, is drowning in deadlines, between homework to grade and essays to write. With everything he needs at the ready and Victor's presence, the more he accomplishes before going home, the better.

To think not even a month before he had sworn to not leave the house ever again is enough to make Yuuri startle with the realization of how much Victor has changed his life already.

 

 

Sometimes, Yuuri likes to watch him working or studying, a way to further convince himself Victor is real, in flesh and bones, and breathing few metres away from him. It's in the small details, the way Victor pins his fringe away when he needs to focus, his habits to leave around half-empty cups of cold coffee, his exclaiming "vkusno!" at every food he likes, and the mission to show as many photos of his poodle to as many people as possible.

He also keeps insisting on a coffee date, anywhere but the campus canteen, until Yuuri is getting short of excuses to avoid a blunt refusal. Phichit shakes his head, unable to understand why Yuuri would keen on refusing the best opportunity for his sentimental life in ages.

Maybe it's the cold burn of knowing Victor isn't and will never be his soulmate. Accepting Victor's invitation would mean assuming a certain romantic interest, which doesn't exist for Yuuri has nothing for Victor but an enormous admiration. His hearts beating when Victor comes so close Yuuri could kiss him if he had the wish and the courage and his cheeks flushing at every Victor's compliment are no proof.

 

 

"Not working."

As the last admission of defeat Yuuri sags against the driver seat, gesturing for Victor to close the hood because the battery is dead and will not come back to life anytime soon.

"I'll try to call the assistance," he shouts over the half-pulled down car-window. "You should go home. You did all you could."

Victor nods, moving enough to come standing next to Yuuri. "I'm fine," he assures, leaning against the car door while the first drops of rain fall on his nose.

"So?" he asks when Yuuri closes the call with a resigned sigh, tossing the phone on the passenger seat.

"They can't arrive before three hours. Too much traffic."

He groans and rubs a hand against his face, slipping fingers under the glasses lenses. He could call Phichit, but chances he'll take less by walking. 

Of all days his car may break, it has to choose the one with the bus service between campus and city going on full strike.

Yuuri retrieves his phone and, making sure to not hurt Victor with the car door, closes it with the little peep sound as the last admission of defeat. Maybe someone on campus has a spare bike to lend him; a pair of rollers would be fine too. Or he should explain the situation to the Secretariat for asking to sleep on campus.

He is already half-way through the road when he notices Victor has been following him all the way, repeating "where are you going" in a loop.

"I think JJ is still on campus. I may ask him for a ride."

 

"Seriously?"

There something almost comical in Victor standing before him with his hands on his hips, with a frown and the epitome of mock horror in his eyes. Yuuri wonders if him falling right into his arms is part of some obscure plan.

 

"What?" he snaps as soon as he has put some distance between him and Victor; of all moments, this is the least suitable for having touch-induced-visions of mysterious lights.

"JJ? Seriously?"

"He is a nice guy." 

"Of course, of course. If you want to spend the car trip listening to how cool he is."

Yuuri's sigh is more than an admission of his agreement, and in all honesty, he isn't in the mood for being stuck in a traffic jam at the sound of "it's JJ style".

"What do you suggest?" He retorts his tongue again almost acting on his own will. Must be the tiredness, it tends to kill any brain to mouth filter.

"Well, I'll offer you a lift."

"I can't accept."

Once again, Victor prevents his every attempt to walk away, moving with an almost inhuman grace and fluidity. He's quick, quick as light. 

"You are not gonna let me go away, aren't you?"

"Not if I can avoid you a bad night."

Yuuri would protest, claiming to stay on campus overnight isn't bad - the dorms are comfortable - but he has learnt little can be done when Victor pursues an idea. He knows it. He is the same. 

"Great. Come, my car is this way. Better hurry up, this rain is going to worse soon. Father's worried;"

Oh. Strange as it may be, Yuuri has almost forgotten it was raining, but now the cold drops falling on his head are unmistakably clear. Covering his head with arms, he quickens his pace to match Victor's. Any other question, about Victor being so sure his car will start or the sentence about the rain, is lost in the first thunders.

Only when they are already inside Victor's car, with the engine started, at least some of Yuuri's doubts receive an answer. Not-electric cars aren't as common as they were a decade ago, but they still exist and given the situation, it must be a thinking-ahead choice.

Two hours later they are stuck in the city traffic, the rain so heavy one can barely see, and Yuuri's belly reacting as it always does when he gets anxious: with hunger. In the greyish darkness, a luminous blue and white sign gets his attention. Must be something linked to an eating place, which couldn’t have a better timing. 

"Do you," he presses his nose against the car window to see better, "like Greek cuisine?" 

The question, implying a simpler one about Victor being hungry, is said with temptative confidence. Indeed, as Yuuri formulates it, his hand is already grabbing the handle, for they haven't moved an inch for half an hour and won't in the next minutes. In the end, he doesn't even wait for an answer. With Victor's giving him a ride home, it's the minimum to at least offer him a semblance of dinner.

"Be right back," is the last thing he shouts before throwing himself right onto the wet pavement and into the shop, the rain pouring over his head. 

The dishes exposed in the Delicatessen are colourful, fried, with a promising smell, but unknown; so much Yuuri ends up ordering a bit of everything. Back in the car, the food in various tin trails is warm against his thighs. 

"Did you sack the place?" Victor can't help commenting on the abundance of Yuuri's food purchases. 

"Better to have some choice."

Yuuri shrugs, sticking his head into his shoulders as a shy tortoise would do, before diverting his attention to the hem of his shirt and drying his glasses. His wet hair is dripping onto his jacket, his nape and in a little stream down his back. Yuuri pushes it back with his fingers in an automatic gesture.

"It suits you," Victor comments the hairdo. He leans forward to switch on the warm air from the AC. Yuuri mutters a "thank you", for the last thing he needs now is a flu. 

Biting into his first rice wrapped in vine leaves trying not to make a mess all over himself, the acrid taste of vinegar and lemon juice explodes on his tongue in a way reminding him of the onigiris back home. Before he could notice, he has already eaten three in rapid succession. 

Victor isn't as lucky. When Yuuri turns toward him to inquire if the food is of his liking, he is comically red in the face, tongue sticking out and hands waving before his face.

"Hot," he chokes out, fumbling for some water. "So spicy. Yuuri, have I wronged you?" 

The combination of blotchy grimace face and dramatic voice pushes a smile onto Yuuri's lips, turning into a full laugh when Victor laments about Yuuri's insensitivity and cruelty.

"Here, taste it," he insists, pushing what's left of his gyros under Yuuri's nose for him to taste how dangerous it is. Unfortunately for him, Yuuri has spent the past five years with Phichit and his extra-spicy-Thai food. This, in comparison, is nothing. 

Yuuri wishes he wouldn't find Victor's pout so adorable.

As dishes are exchanged, tasted, finished and the car becomes increasingly a mess, Yuuri learns more about Victor in the next hours than the whole month before. He discovers Victor can't stand anything spicy to save his life, that he adores sourness and has the sweetest tooth ever; to the point of eating a whole box of honey dripping baklava without skipping a beat.

Yuuri, on his side, has been nibbling at his pastry for the past ten minutes. 

"A penny for your thoughts," Victor breaks the silence, munching happily on Yuuri's sweets when it becomes clear Yuuri won't finish it.

"The thing you said before," Yuuri begins, scratching at his temples, "the thing about your father being concerned. I suppose it was a metaphor."

"You could see it that way. It's a long story."

Victor popping the first three buttons of his shirt may be due entirely to the heat, but Yuuri doesn’t miss the flicker of gold between Victor's collar bones. 

"Nice necklace."

"This? I had it since I was a kid," Victor says, picking it from the clasp for Yuuri to see, a five petals flower inscribed in a pentagon inside a circle. 

"The sun," comes Victor's explanation to Yuuri unexpressed question. Something in his tone and the way he tucks the pendant back into the shirt, tells Yuuri it's more than a pretty jewel. 

For him, after a life spent in separating everything true and scientific and believing Victor Nikiforov had already perfected the rational view, discovering a spirituality in his idol shakes again everything he thought he knew from the foundations. In retrospective, however, the news isn't as unexpected.

He’s about to ask Victor about his opinion on the soulmate system, if he has a soulmate already, if he believes a couple can be happy outside the soulbond; but the words die in his throat, making him feel silly with worries he shouldn't have in the first place, given Victor is only a friend.

Looking outside the car window, Yuuri doesn't recognize the neighborhood, blame it on the rain and the darkness. The nav system doesn't help. 

"My place isn't far from here. I could host you, given the situation," Victor seems to read his mind with his answer.

Once again, there is something in his voice, his reasoning, for which Yuuri can only accept the hospitality, despite all the increasingly softer protests about it not being needed.

Victor's flat for his time in town is on the last floor, whose stairs they have to walk all the way up because the elevator is down for maintenance due to the weather. Yuuri fears there is something more to it.

As soon as Victor's open the door, a barking ball of fur rushes to greet them, Makkachin, for sure. Tears fill Yuuri's eyes despite his best efforts. 

"What's wrong?" Victor inquires, worried while kneeling to scratch Makkachin behind his ears and receive his good dose of doggy kisses. Yuuri sniffs.

"I used to have a poodle. He passed away some months ago."

"That's terrible," Victor empathises. He hugs Makkachin as to express a fear unnamed but yet recognisable.

"What was their name?"

"Vicchan."

For a moment Yuuri fears Victor could discover the name is a cute diminutive of his, reminiscing of the childhood of a boy with one interest and reason; but it turns out Japanese names convention aren't one of Victor's many interests.

"Such a cute name," he comments, huffing in protest when Makkachin wrestles free to demand the sans amount of cuddles from Yuuri. Yuuri happily obliges.

This is when he remembers to call Phichit to warn him. Phichit answers the phone claiming he can't go on like this. All normal.

The rest of the evening is lost in Yuuri’s attempts to not make a fool of himself while Victor’s guest; or simply combust out of admiration. He finds himself nested on the couch with some milky brew beverage warming his hands, the tv on the news channel, and the tiredness of a long day washing over him all at once.

When the most vivid dream he has had in weeks jolts him awake, he is in Victor’s bed.

“Bad night?” Phichit inquires some hours later, in one of the rare days when their lives cross on campus, at the sight of Yuuri’s deep eye-bag and the way he keeps stretching his arms above his head in the hope to pop some back pain away.

“Kind of.”

Glancing back at Victor, with his perfectly coiffed hair and perky voice as he chats with Seung-Gil about dog food, it’s hard to believe he was the one who spent half the night sleeping on the couch. 

“What?” Phichit frowns, him too side-eyeing Victor, “did he treat you bad?”

A part of Yuuri wishes it was the case and the past day never happened; and if it happened only to show what terrible person Victor is, in truth. It would make things easier, giving to Yuuri the final chance to move on from his childish regret of not being Victor's soulmate. 

"All the contrary," he groans, instead, the remnants of Victor's detergent on his sheets still filling his nose. "It's just a bad sleeping period."

Phichit nods sympathetically. As Yuuri flatmate, he has noticed it too.

This last dream was new and terrible, with the now constant presence of the moon lingering in its every fibre. Yuuri pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to remember something more than sensation and chaotic pictures. Somebody is holding his hands, the hold strong and sure, somewhere far from the rest of the crowd. It's a happy day, something important he can't remember has happened. Somebody is holding his hands, before showering his face in kisses with words of pride.

It is a happy day. It should've been a happy day and yet an unnamed fear clenches around his heart, washing over him as cold darkness obliterating every light.

He wakes up drenched in sweat, sobbing into the cushion and terrified of going back to sleep. 

"But Victor was a dear. He stood awake with me until I calmed down, prepared me a cup of chamomile," Yuuri assures, a shadow of a smile on his lips in remembering how Victor came rushing to his room to check what was wrong. 

At that moment his nose picks up the familiar scent of the canteen coffee, which is nice and makes a person wish the taste was just as good. 

"I bought you coffee. I thought you may need it."

Victor is standing next to him, a big, fuming paper cup in his right hand, stretched out in an offering. 

"Well, thank you."

Yuuri takes a sip, grimacing and blinking what's left of his sleepiness away. Seeing him this close and with a nice dose of caffeine in his system, he notices how Victor doesn't look so perfectly groomed anymore, with bags under his eyes and his fringe, clean, but more plastered than usual. It fills Yuuri of a mixture of worry and gratitude, slowly softening inside him as the coffee turns cold. 

"Looks like someone has been caught in someone else's net." Phichit nudges Yuuri while they are already set for work. Yuuri shrugs, pretending to be too busy to care about his best friend teasing.

It is undeniable though something has changed, imperceptible and yet impossible to ignore. Now, when Victor offers to eat lunch together, Yuuri accepts. 

There must be something in spitting toothpaste in the same sink that brings people closer. 

It is another two weeks later - or maybe more, Yuuri is starting to lose count of the days - when Victor says, "Have you tried to enlarge the reference system?"

In the background, Leo is listening to some news about the Dark Shape and how, all of sudden, has become visible also at day. Scandinavians are used to entire days of darkness, but a subtle panic has already begun to spread through the population. Despite all scientists' invitation not to jump to conclusions, the fact that something isn't right has just become too clear. 

"Yuuri?" Victor calls him again, stretching over the table they are working on to gently tap on his shoulder. Yuuri flinches, blinking back to reality. They have been working for hours now, empty paper cups of coffee scattered among papers. In theory, it should be Yuuri's problem, linked to his and not Victor's field of specialisation; but in truth, there isn't a field Victor doesn't want to explore. Plus he is stuck on his project and a diversion can only do him good.

"Sorry, I got distracted," Yuuri apologies, gesturing toward Sara and her broadcasting mobile phone in explanation, "you were saying."

"You should expand the reference system."

Yuuri looks at Victor as if he has gone crazy, even grabbing the last cup of coffee Victor consumed to sniff at it and check if it wasn't something stronger. "Wouldn't it complicate things?"

Victor's expression is so offended Yuuri has a hard time telling is it is sincere or a good acting, worthy of his most dramatic moments. 

"Yuuri, I thought we had agreed changing perspective is a good thing."

"Wasn't that about asking a pair of new eyes for when we can't see a problem?" Yuuri retorts back, with a confidence he couldn't even imagine, especially in Victor's presence. 

"That too, but it's about being open to new ideas too."

"True."

Once transferred to the computer station for some extra technological help, Yuuri reiterates, "How exactly should I enlarge the reference?"

"Well, take more stars into consideration. You are working on two, now, right? Make them three or four."

For not the first time, Yuuri reflects on how strange it is he decided to focus on when stars are born whereas Victor works on what's left by a dying one. When Yuuri asked him if he was going to change specialization, Victor only pledged his love for cosmology once more. 

As it said, there is something in the vastity of the cosmos itself that makes you want to discover how all came into existence; how fascinating it is to see everything is connected. 

But Victor also likes to experiment, because sometimes a detail is so fascinating a person can’t help but give it some attention. Yuuri had hummed his agreements. It may be unorthodox in the field, but Victor's charme and strength, also as a scientist, lay exactly in his thinking outside the box. 

Yuuri dwells into these thoughts as his fingers work on the keyboard, opening the same software that once gave him grief but now, with some modifications courtesy of a collaboration with some IT students, has become an indispensable asset for the laboratory. He quickly opens an already existing model and changes some parametres, following Victor advice. 

For the first time in weeks, maybe even months, fresh results appear.

Here's another thing: Victor's knowledge about stars is terrifying. Not much on the scientific part, which is still astounding, but on the roles and interpretation stars have had in different cultures. He calls each stars by "their original names" - Yuuri supposes are the names given by the first populations who discovered them - and he refuses to use the scientific nomenclature. 

"You wouldn't be happy if I called you Human zeta 3," Victor comments again when Yuuri protests against the habit for he has no idea what stars Victor is referring to. 

Some of those names are so strange Yuuri can’t help but think Victor has invented them by smashing together random letters.

"That's offensive," Victor chastises before Yuuri's alleged insensitivity. "And even if they were invented, they still are nicer than epsilon Ursa minor or delta arietis."

"At keep the traditional nomenclature when we are working," Yuuri bargains, "Like, what's wrong with the name Betelgeuse?"

"It's not the original one," Victor begins, stubborn in his quirks as few people can be, but Yuuri's frown must be strong enough to make him change his mind. Or at least accept a compromise.

"Fine," he eventually groans. 

Once the matter is settled, working becomes surprisingly faster and easier. They stay at the lab long after the others have already left and they are so immersed into their calculations, they would also camp there, if Yuuri hadn't his exams, lessons and teaching activities. Besides, Victor can't function well without his periodical sunlight. 

When they are together, all is devoted to brainstorming, sometimes so fast their communication reduces to a mixture of English, Russian and Japanese nobody else can understand. Yuuri's equations may start with some semblance of order, but by the end of the day, the numbers are just lines he rushes to copy in a fair copy before he forgets them. 

When Yuuri comes home, he sleeps standing in the cold shower, the day far from being finished. He wouldn't change his routine with anything else. 

Three weeks later he is writing a short article about his and Victor's latest discoveries. 

Victor still insists the discoveries are Yuuri's, his help merely a guiding hand, and continues to refuse adding his name to the article, no matter how many times Yuuri protests.

Celestino says two stubborn people like them could only find each other. Yuuri would blush, had he got the time.

Last night he dreamed of a field of luminous flowers extending on the moon like a sea of silver and green, the grass so tall it brushed against his hips, tickling the palms of his hands. He remembers running and the flowers sweet fragrance filling his nose, a perfume so real Yuuri keeps smelling it long after he’s woken up. He shrugs them off as some repressed childhood memory, while sniffing a bottle of lemon-scented detergent to cancel the flower perfume from his head. 

Just as he blasts the music at full volume in his ears to cover the voices calling him in his dreams, mysterious, but so familiar, his heart clenches again with homesickness. The other day he called his sister to reassure her America hasn't swallowed him alive and he was close to bursting into tears right in the middle of the chat. He blamed his quivery voice on the tiredness and the bad connection. He is sure Mari didn't buy any of that.

Even speaking with Minako isn’t helping much anymore, the facts tapping into something outside the woman’s competency. For the first time in months, Yuuri dares to think about possible past lives because if soulmates exist, reincarnations must too. 

Most of the days, however, he still anchors to the most scientific explanation possible, his dreams being nothing but an outlet for a bunch of information his brain acquired during his lifetime. There is nothing magical or mysterious in dejavu, Yuuri repeats to himself, pushing aside the voice in his head reminding him the visions Victor's touch caused. 

He was only day dreaming.

What he can't ignore, however, is the news popping out from everywhere about a whole data server shutting down from one day to the other for no apparent reason; or the unexpected lack of light destroying entire crops. Or, the horror, a group of students in a small town in the depth of Norway engaging in a ritual suicide for the Dark Shape.

Experts continue to invite people not to panic, but blackouts increase and some people refuse to leave their home, out of fear.

The dinner organised by the astrophysics faculty to celebrate the most brilliant students and colleagues of the year cannot avoid addressing the issue. 

Yuuri listens with one ear, poking at the fancy food on his plate and answering in monosyllables either Victor, or the other people at the table. It takes Victor being called to the stage to snap Yuuri back to attention.

How was possible to carry oneself with such grace and confidence, even on an impromptu, Yuuri still wonders

"Somebody got a crush." Phichit elbows Yuuri,

"What? I was just listening to his intervention."

"Of course," Phichit nods, “just like you did with all the other interventions before."

"They were boring."

"With stars in your eyes," Phichit smirks, undeterred. Yuuri would hit him with a pillow if they weren't in public and there was a pillow available. 

Moments later, Victor invites Yuuri to join him to take his fair share of glory and merits. Yuuri would avoid, but refusing would draw more attention on him, so he gulps a whole glass of champagne and, for lack of something better, struts to the stage.

They must be the longest five minutes of his life, even more than his disastrous presentation, leaving Yuuri with his mouth dry and an urgent need for some fresh air. He heads to the nearest balcony with a half-hearted apology to the others.

"I heard your people believe there is a bunny on the moon."

Victor comes to stand next to him with nonchalance, throwing his arms over the rail, eyes fixed on the soil meters away for a moment, before turning to watch the starred sky. It makes you almost forget about the Dark Shape and all the problems it is causing. 

"A bunny preparing mochi," Yuuri confirms, his mind running to the fairytales his mom used to tell to make him sleep when he still shared a bedroom with Mari.

“Or preparing medical herbs,” Victor counters, with the Chinese version of the same legend. His naked arm brushes against Yuuri’s in the warm air of the night.

The rabbit on the moon lives in a palace of crystal and diamonds and Yuuri is sneaking away from her and his duties at court. His layered garments flows in the wind, swishing on the floor, heavy on Yuuri’s shoulders who run and leaves a trail of clothing behind until he remains only in a light-blue tunic. It’s a day too beautiful to stay closed in a library to study ancient rituals.

"Yuuri."

Yuuri blinks to refocus on the present, realising he must have dream-walked for a good couple of metres before Victor could catch up with him. 

"Yes, “ he assures, walking back to the balcony. "I am just having weird dreams."

"Weird dreams?" Victor inquires, a sudden frown traversing his forehead. There is something in his concern Yuuri cannot resist. 

"The moon has become a fixed guest in my dream," he confesses. "The downfall of studying something too much," he attempts to play it all down. After all, the moon isn't his main field of study. Victor, however, doesn't comment, closing into a deep and long silence.

"Maybe it's your brain trying to tell you something," he eventually says out-loud. "I would offer you to take some fresh air, but we are already outside."

"It'll pass soon," Yuuri rubs the back of his neck, glancing back at the tables and the various chatting, before returning his gaze up to the sky. A soft haze covers the moon tonight. It captures his attention so much he doesn't notice Victor disappearing from his side. 

He reappears before Yuuri can wonder where did he go or even worry, cradling a glass of champagne in hands.

“Maybe this would help,” he offers the glass to Yuuri.

“I’m afraid it isn’t a good idea.”

“Why? Can’t stand a couple glasses?”

“Two glass isn’t a problem, as long as they remain two."

There is some acknowledgement in Victor's expression, as if the piece of information wasn’t a complete novelty for him, making Yuuri wonder why and how; because he didn't share it before. He would swear Phichit had a hand in it, his love for chatting finding the best ear in Victor. Even more, if the gossip has something to do with Yuuri.

A part of him, still, isn't satisfied by this simple explanation, whether proved true or not. 

"What do you think of soulmates?" Yuuri finds himself asking, instead.

The glass in his hands is now empty, his head light enough to give his tongue the freedom it normally doesn't know. 

"Why do you ask?" Victor's tone has a note of uncertainty. 

When Yuuri glances to the side, to peer Victor's reaction, he looks just as puzzled. He rolls the glass stem between thumb and index finger, forward and backward until the movement becomes nothing but automatic.

"You know," he attempts an explanation, "it's one thing science doesn't seem able to explain."

Victor's response is both unexpected and the only right answer. "If this universe is a closed system and everything continuously changes in shape and substance, it's normal people find a special link in others."

In the newly descended darkness, Victor's features quickly become indistinguishable, but Yuuri has worked elbow to elbow with him long enough to recognize the nuances in his voice. It drips with a thoughtfulness, eventually drifting into a complete silence, as if Victor got lost into his own mind. 

"What about the childhood memory visions phenomenon?" Yuuri insists.

"Maybe mind, soul and body are more connected than we believe."

"You mean mind-reading could be a thing?"

"I don't see why not, one day."

Once again, Victor's voice drifts to silence, leaving Yuuri with the same doubts and questions of when the conversation started. It may as well be something is not meant to be explained. Yuuri's mouth opens for yet another question, the same tormenting his days with a curiosity he is too afraid of satisfying, god knows why. Maybe with a couple glasses more, he could do, had he been in the mood for a public humiliation. 

Instead, he tilts his head up to the sky once again and follows Victor's finger tracing the few visible constellations. 

 

It's the last day before the storm. 

By the time Yuuri arrives on campus, he has already read and heard so many different versions of the same occurrence he eventually preferred to put his mobile on fly mode and stuck a pair of earbuds in his ears to reduce the background noise to a low, confusing buzz. Whoever needs to contact him now will survive for an hour more.

At the lab, the atmosphere is quiet, eerily silent unlike the usual clicking of machinery being activated, the typing, the scratching of pencils against paper and the continuous chatting. The only sound is the female voice of some announcer speaking from Leo's mobile. The entirety lab has gathered around him, eating from every word the news channel can offer.

A whole constellation losing its light from one day to another isn't something one witness every day. But last night people raised their heads up to the sky to discover the whole Ursa Minor was no more, its light so feeble now only professional telescopes can detect it. 

Tens of people committed suicide in panic, while incidents are reported in the whole world for a sudden wave of hysteria. The Dark Shape has doubled its size. 

"So, I suppose will need another way to orient at night," Phichit says, in a vain attempt to break the tension.

"Has anyone seen Vitya yet?" Yuuri asks, glancing around, so worried about Victor's absence in a moment like, he uses the Russian diminutive without even thinking. Checking again his phone for possible missing calls only confirms Victor has something more important to do, enough to be late without even a warning. 

"Worried for your boyfriend? He warned Celestino to say he would be late. Something about, some phone calls he had to make."

At the new piece of info, Yuuri flops onto the nearest chair, too worried about the situation to correct Phichi and his recent habit to consider him and Victor a couple. 

"What phone calls?" 

"I suppose with his old agency," Phichit wonders, eventually moving to his workstation. The others imitate him, the low buzzing noise from Leo's mobile, fading into silence.

When Victor crosses the lab threshold it's way past midday and Yuuri has been fixing the computer screen for hours, unable to focus on anything. So fast he jerks around his head gets dizzy. There must be something comical in how he stumbles over his feet to rush to Victor, causing a whole trail of bruises in the process.

"Any news?" 

Yuuri has never seen Victor in such messy state. His hair is unruled and greasy, his eyes so red and puffy Yuuri could swear he’s spent the past hours crying if it wasn't ridiculous. 

He recognizes Victor wearing the same clothes from yesterday, wrinkled and raggedy for having slept in them. 

Though judging from the eyebags he is sporting, Victor mustn't have slept a wink. 

"I got a call from both the NASA and the CERN," Victor reveals, voice raucous and unrecognizable, fiddling with the sun-charm lying on his chest. "They want to assemble a think tank to investigate the phenomenon on site. They asked everyone involved to leave tonight. They fear international flights may be suspended."

Yuuri is sure Victor must be saying more than the few sentences his brain registers. If he stares at his mouth, he can see it moving long after his ears have stopped catching any sound, so strong is the sudden buzz in his head. 

"Tonight?" he has to force his voice out, strangled. No matter how often in the past months Yuuri told himself Victor's presence at his side would be temporary, a brief but positive collaboration between scientists, his departure is happening too soon. 

"Yes. I know it's impromptu."

Yuuri nods, still unable to focus.

"But I'm sure it's enough time to prepare some luggage."

"I suppose."

"Wonderful. So this is your ticket."

The bubble around Yuuri's head bursts. Suddenly Victor is offering him a folded paper as the whole lab stares back. "I'm sorry, what?”

"Your ticket, we're leaving tonight," Victor explains, too used to Yuuri’s occasionally spacing-out to be offended by his lack of attention. It doesn’t make anything less humiliating. 

Yuuri glances now at the paper, now at Victor, until the former finds its way in his hands. The plane is bound to leave at eight pm, Oslo the destination. 

There are so many questions and doubts and words clashing in Yuuri's head now the only thing he manages to say, in the end, is a rude and banal, "What?"

During all of Victor patient recap of everything he said in the past minutes, Yuuri has to pinch his forearms crossed at his chest to keep focused. An headache is blooming behind his eyes, as he wonders if Victor’s including him in the project should flatter or offend him. 

What matters, in the end, is the choice and Yuuri knows too well he’s at one of those life-changing crossroads moments; just like he is sure Victor won't be back any time soon, maybe never, if he leaves now. 

Yuuri twists the ticket in his hands, feeling like a man on the brim of a cliff, forcing to close his eyes and leap.

"Tonight, then."

In two days there would've been the last exam of the semester and his article has been approved. Yuuri guesses he will have other things to worry about now. First, there is the call to his sister cut short by a terrible signal before it hits Yuuri with the full strength of the situation. 

An unspeakable danger lies across the ocean and it will swallow them all, eventually. It looms over Yuuri’s head as he rushes back home to pack the essential for what may be the last trip of his life.

Once in Oslo, still shaking after a flight more similar to a crazy roller-coaster ride, Yuuri becomes certain of this. 

There are some familiar faces waiting for them at the space centre. Yuuri recognizes Chris Giacometti, the scientist from CERN who taught for a semester at his campus; and a guy he read about in a digest, named Emil Nekola. Soon he is introduced to the others, no recognisable names to him, people completely new; Otabek Altin. The Crispino Twins. Paths must be destined to cross at a certain level of excellence, no matter the field. 

Even the best of minds, however, can do little against what can be defined only as a monstrosity, defying every known law of physics. The Dark Shape from the real creeps under the skin with a terrific sense of omen, oppressing the mind if one looks for too long up, blacker than any black created by human hand. 

They do what they can, they set aside fear, turning it into respect, and point their best instruments toward the sky. But astronomy requires time, and the more days pass, the more it's clear they don't have such luxury. 

"We lost contact with another satellite," Victor announces one day similar to all the precedent, with a thick layer of clouds covering the sun, the grey abruptly diving into the Dark Shape black. "And the pattern confirms my theory," Victor continues. "It's getting nearer." 

There is a list of major questions in the main room assigned for their research. They all had to learn them by heart in a matter of days. Questions on how to fight something thousands of light year away and yet close enough to cause permanent damages to Earth. Or why it is visible only from certain geographical area. 

One thing is sure: the more a satellite cuts the communication, the more a star disappear from the sky, the more the Dark Shape grows.

When the Nothingness swallows the last satellite before the outskirts of the Solar System, the Dark Shape has covered the Norway sky into a premature night.

How can one prepare for the end of the world?

***

Something cold is pressing against Yuuri's cheek, he must have fallen asleep against the steel surface of a lab table. He vaguely registers its presence in his state of half-sleep, the cold lab light hurting his eyes behind the closed eyelids. The dream was so vivid and yet he can't bring himself to remember it, a voice in the back of his head chastising him for having peered through his fingers. His lips curve into a little, happy smile for wish he knows why. 

At lunch, for the first time, Yuuri grabs Victor hand over the lunch trail, diverting his gaze to the plate to avoid any expression on Victor's face, whether surprise, irritation or hope. After all, there isn't affection in his gesture, but only an egotistical desire, need, to know.

For a moment Yuuri fears the visions won't come, not after all the weeks spent in carefully avoiding any skin on skin contact with Victor; that they’re nothing but a one time occurrence. He dives into the touch with the bravery of science and the conviction of being prepared to whatever may come. 

He isn’t.

Yuuri’s vision goes dark the instant he lies his palm onto the back of Victor's hand, making him recoil as if hit by an electric shot. He hears cries, something trying to hold onto him and slowly losing its grip. His nails scratch against the table, his hands grab the edge.

The vision snaps with the harsh sound of his chair colliding against the floor, where Yuuri lies, on his back, in the mess he made while detached from reality. His lap is wet with what is left of food spilled from his plate. 

The first thing he notices once regained a certain composure is Victor towering over him, his expression more concerned than amused. Yuuri takes the offered hand after a fraction of hesitation, now too aware of what the touch implies. 

This time in Victor’s hand strong hold against his, the warmth and dryness of his palm, Yuuri sees fragments of colorful garments twirling in the wind, blades of grass under naked feet, a crown of stars. 

“Your dreams again?”

Victor knows. Victor listened and Victor remembers. Yuuri finds no better way than to run away. 

He messages Phichit and Mari, since he hasn’t called in a while, no need to make up different reasons and use a different tone. Phichit asks about Victor, poking Yuuri for his reticence, claiming for news.

Yuuri wishes he knows and at this rate he is too afraid to interrogate himself.

They lose connection with a satellite looming around Pluto a little after a month Yuuri has been in Norway. It’s the longest time he spent without seeing the sun.

He must have seen a movie with a similar plot, somewhere. 

***

"The world will not end, I promise," Victor affirms, tilting his head back to look up at the source of all their anguish. For a moment Yuuri almost believes him, trusting Victor could scare a gigantic celestial mystery away with nothing more than a state or a wave of the hand. They are sitting on the small balcony outside Victor’s hotel room, Yuuri too weak to stay away from him for too long. Around them, the world seems to have slowed down, for people don’t see a need to rush when there may not be a tomorrow. 

Yuuri sighs, unable to say anything, for anything would sound too stupid. He's a scientist and as one he has long accepted everything, even what may seem eternal, is destined to die and be reborn. He knows about entropy, about humanity and he knows even Earth itself is a whisper to the universe. Nothing is indispensable. There is something strange as well as terrifying in being present to witness something predicted would not happen for another some million years or so. One day the Sun will die and in one last Swan song grow enough to absorb also Earth in the process. This Yuuri expected. How long still? A month, a week, a day? Vain hopes the Dark Shape will change direction, going away just as it came, just another inexplicable celestial phenomenon. Earth survived so much already, after all. 

Victor is saying something, his head tilted to the side, suddenly so close Yuuri can feel his breath on his face. He doesn't retract.

Any other word is lost to the night. 

Victor's lips brush against his and Yuuri stops listening.

He sees hands cupped to protect a flicker of light shaped as a flower. Someone is placing it in his hair, luminous and warm to the touch. 

Once again The vision shatters before Yuuri could grasp it to a satisfying conclusion, leaving him with nothing but a bittersweet taste in his mouth

Victor is no longer kissing him

"Sorry, I shouldn't have."

Yuuri realization hits him with the same strength of finding a solution to a long unresolvable problem. Everything’s now clear.

Yuuri is not a good kisser, lacking experience and finesse. So he prays Victor won’t mind, as he fists his hair and kiss him back, harder, with the desperation of a need that suddenly he cannot ignore. Lips awkwardly smashing together before fear could hold him back.

Tomorrow, Yuuri thinks, as they stumble to Victor's bed and he let Victor undress him, tomorrow he will ask the universe for forgiveness. 

Victor isn't meant for him, maybe It’s just an instinct,a comforting presence, but for one night he can pretend and he can believe. Let reality hurt when dawn will come, let the truth make his heart bleed and his eyes cry. It is worth it 

Victor never cared in the first place, pursuing him like a lover - like a soulmate - no matter what Fate may say. How cruel in all its kindness that is. 

Until Yuuri must have started to believe it too, somewhere along the way, in between the sleepless nights bend over pages of calculations and the pauses smelling of cheap coffee. 

Victor's touch is ever so gentle on Yuuri's skin, brushing against his hip bones, sliding down to caress the thighs, and back to grip his sides. It makes him shiver in expectation, as his hands roam until they find an anchor at Victor’s shoulders. He averts his gaze to the side when Victor’s hand palm between his legs, hot mouth against his neck.

Yuuri lets him, and for every touch, kiss or caress, reality and dreams overlap until his vision blur. For there is no more here and there, now and then, but everything has happened once is happening again. Anguish darkness and joyous starlight. The mattress creaking under him and the softness of wet grass. 

The moon looming over their head. Someone, someone is waiting for him, he is running. 

Victor's touching him, holding him, kissing him. Yuuri hears himself moaning. Someone, somewhere, is laughing

His mouth opens on a silent cry.

The touch ceases. Someone is screaming. 

“Yuuri?” 

He curls in fetal position, hands on his ears to stop the anguish sound. Victor is so close, he can feel his body warmth. Amidst the screaming, Victor is saying something, but the screaming is too loud. 

Too loud and too close, as if coming from a near sources, from within. Yuuri mouth is still open. 

It is open and he is screaming, for something terrible will soon happen. It will get him, swallow him alive. Victor drags him into a sitting position and presses his hands against Yuuri’s, still on his ears, until the scream becomes a muffled sound.

“Look at me,” Victor mouths. “Please.”

There is something comforting and ancestrally familiar on Victor’s eyes, it makes Yuuri feel safe. 

But they were also the last thing he saw before … before 

“Yuuri. It’s gone. Please.”

Gone? What a strange word, that can bring both relief and sorrow depending on the situation. But if he is still here, whatever bad happened, it’s gone. That's all that matters. It's enough to stop screaming. 

The silence afterwards is deafening. 

If Victor is about to say something more, Yuuri prevents him with a finger on his lips. There is one last thing still missing, a sensation at the corner of his mind, the feeling of having known Victor all his life. Sometimes Victor seems to burn. He burnt so much.

Yuuri lips move to form a sound unknown to human tongue. Victor's name. His real name.

And when Victor, tentatively, as if testing a theory while too afraid of the result, does the same with him, Yuuri knows. 

"My soulmate," he says, gingerly stretching out an hand to brush his knuckles against Victor's cheek. A prince came from the star, his love and doom. 

"You remember?" Victor speaks like a man not daring to hope and yet unable to stop it. Yuuri wonders how he couldn't notice him before. 

How many lifetimes? How many lives before Victor could find him again; Victor who shouldn't be here and yet it is.

That day he was crying, spilling tears of fear and sorrow for all the dying stars, his brothers and his sisters. 

"I remember," he confirms. 

Victor drags him into the tightest of embraces, almost leaving Yuuri breathless. 

In another lifetime he would indulge in what sweetness can happen between two lovers, guiding again Victor to the innermost parts of his being. But there is a Monster looming over their head and one in Yuuri chest, pressing to escape. 

"It was my birthday," he breathes against Victor's shoulder and rests his head on it.

It's strange to retell a story both parties already know, waiting for a confirmation that what is being said happened. 

The people of the moon and the stars do not mix. It's not about a war or anything cultural, they have no reason to do so. Besides, rumour has it a star is bound to its assigned place for all life. They are daughters and sons of other gods, living too far from the moon for the moon people to ever be bothered. 

We are here. They are there. This Yuuri is taught in the long hours of study at the moon palace. He will become a priest and a proud servant of the moon deities, one day. For them he reads pages of history of his people, learns the sacred songs and dances.

"I heard music pouring from you," Victor reminisces, brushing away some tufts from Yuuri's forehead. 

"You said you wanted to watch a bit closer," Yuuri adds, leaning into the touch, with his mind running to their fateful first meeting. 

"You were just too beautiful."

Victor's sheepish expression hasn't changed in millions of years, nor his smile, or the adoring shine in his eyes. Forehead against forehead, Yuuri come to recognize again in the flesh what once was only an astral projection. 

Moon people and stars do not mingle, nor they should develop any kind of connection and Yuuri grabs to it as his heart flutters at the sound of Victor's laugh and his belly warm up with subtle joy for each of his visits.

Before he can notice, the excuse of wanting to see him dance is set aside for a sincere interest in his company, sporadic visits become precise dates, and he is lying on the grass with lips still tingling for a star kiss. 

Victor for being so talkative doesn't tell much about himself, but enough for Yuuri to get a picture. He learns Victor is what the other stars call "a guardian", his mother is the Morning Star, and his family keeps the universe in balance. 

Immobility is the price to pay.

Victor's astral projection never last much and even if it did, it wouldn't be enough. Yuuri stretches out an hand to try and grab Victor's fingertips but there's only thin air left. 

How cruel love can be. Soon Yuuri will come of age, a full moon priest in his own right, something he had prepared for since he was a kid. There will be a big feast in his honour. His mother sews a new dress for the occasion. His friends alternate attempt to scare him and sincere congratulations. His sister takes on her shoulder what little left he had of housework. 

Victor dares to attend in his physical form, quick to shush all of Yuuri's worries. It won't be a day away from his assigned position to put the universe in danger and the others stars are perfectly capable to keep the Doomsday Hound under control. 

Oh moon gods, Victor glows so much in happiness Yuuri dies a little inside when he has to stop him from any physical touch or the purification rituals will be spoiled. 

But after the initiation ceremony, much more will be permitted. 

The sun rises twice over the moon surface before Yuuri could be considered fully consecrated, his first sacrifice to the divinities completed, the long celebration afterwards coming to an end.

Yuuri taps his fingers on the table in impatience for the guests to leave, blaming them for each minute he has to make Victor wait. As soon as the last guest take their departure, he is already running down to the grass fields, not even caring to change from his high clothes. They swirl in the wind, the gown hems brushing against the dusty road, hair ornaments bouncing at every step. 

He all but dives in Victor's arms, awkwardly angling their head for a kiss he desired for days. Victor's Astral kisses are nice, but they pale compared to his real, warm mouth against Yuuri's, the tongue deliciously slipping inside. Moaning into the kiss, Yuuri registers Victor’s grabbing him by his hips in playful manner, digging in the flesh as much as he can with all the layers of fabric Yuuri is still wearing. 

Two slip off his shoulders before he can notice. Victor fumbles to raise the cloth left and pool it around Yuuri's thighs.

"Wait," Yuuri breathes against Victor's mouth, breaking the kiss with a little frown. But at this rhythm they risk ending up making love right there and Yuuri wishes more for his first time.

"I know a place," he adds. Victor murmurs his approval, resuming peppering kisses all over Yuuri's face. 

“My soulmate," he laughs, when they finally manage to put some space between them. Yuuri just takes his hand and tugs gently. 

He doesn't expect Victor's eyes to widen in horror. 

Darkness swallows him before he can even realize what's happening.

"It was so cold. I couldn't see anything. I must have thought something about it being a punishment for having ran away. I can't remember anything more."

Sitting cross-legged on the messy bed, the noise of Oslo night traffic coming from the window left ajar, Yuuri passes an hand over his eyes and mouth, repressing the nausea surging from the back of his throat. He fumbles to switch on all the lights available in the room, finding reassurance in their whitish coldness. 

"What happened after?" he urges Victor.

Victor speaks with the dull tone of a story told too many times. In his fingers curling to grab at the sheet hem, Yuuri can read all the weight of his blame. 

"I, I tried to fight Simargl. I tried to stop him from destroying the moon, I called my siblings for help, But before we could tame it again, it had already swallowed half the universe."

A part of Yuuri, the rational scientist who stopped to believe in fairytale long ago, has an hard time in accepting the universe has come to be what it is because some kind of divine monster used it as a snack. 

Yet, he has no doubt Victor's telling the truth; like he knows his memories of the moon aren't some fantasies of a stressed mind.

He drinks from Victor’s words about the apocalypse aftermath, Dazbog's terrible wrath, Victor's being chained to his place with magic and most his light being transferred to the Polaris. 

"And one day I looked down on Earth and you were there, a human afraid of everything and barely aware of his own existence. But it was you, I was sure. 

I knew it was a sign of Fate, but my the time I managed to set free from my prison, centuries had passed and you were lost once again."

Hadn't it been for Zorya Utrennaya, the mother of all stars, intervention in all her pity, Victor's immortal life would've ended there, with no powers or memories of what once had been.

"Instead the Morning Star restored some of my magic and granted me the ability to remember what once was. She knew I wouldn't come home without you, nor that they could chain me and so she had no other choice but to help me."

"Why didn't you tell me before? That day you said nothing, how could I have imagined you were my soulmate?" 

There's exasperation in Yuuri's question, even a hint of accusation, for all the pain and doubts and attempts to repress his feelings he had to endure. The irritation, however, is short lived. He may have had some harsh months, Victor suffered for countless lifetimes. Without thinking, Yuuri drags him closer, until Victor's head is in his lap.

"I tried," is Victor's answer, a sigh heavy with all the failures the word carries. 

"But everytime I told you we were soulmates, it triggered something in you. It messed with your head. I couldn't risk it again."

In some lifetimes social status made Yuuri unapproachable, in some their paths couldn't cross, in others hate exploded in lieu of love. 

"And of all times, there wasn't a happy one?"

"Some were, rare, but they existed. One lifetime I believed death wouldn't keep us apart," Victor wiggles a bit into Yuuri's lap, turning to look at him from down below.

"So I prayed my mother to have your soul turned into a star for eternity. I was told it wasn't possible. You hadn't remembered your past, your soul was still human. You never accepted your dreams, your visions."

"You knew about my visions?" 

"I knew you may have them. I didn't dare to push too much, though. Your mind never reacted well to them."

Yuuri can only agree, his own screaming still echoing in his ears, his skin crawling for hours each time Victor's touch revived his forgotten past. 

"But now I remember," he reassures. His fingers card through Victor's hair. It happened before, now he knows, when Victor's hair reached all the way down to his feet. 

The following moments blur. Eventually Victor peels himself off Yuuri, not without indulging in another, tender kiss. They shower together, re-make the bed, switch the light off. The night is deep, starless. 

"It must be hard to find me every time," Yuuri says out loud, later, eyes on the ceiling and fingers intertwined with Victor's. Soon he is held in a side embrace, Victor's head in the crook of his neck.

"You had always a familiar vibe, no matter the time or place. You always had a loving family, a sister, loyal friends. As if your soul attracted what made it feel safe. And when I touched you, I knew."

Yuuri has not the courage to ask what kind of childhood memory Victor has seen. No matter if from this or another lifetime, he is sure they are embarrassing.

"What happens now?" he wonders instead, turning to be Victor's little spoon. "We wait for our end?"

Victor wrap his arms around his chest more firmly. "I told you, the world will not end."

Maybe it's because Victor was born to fight that Thing in the sky, maybe it's the fact of being by his own soulmate, but Yuuri is certain of this. For the first time, he feels safe. 

Somewhere in his half-sleep state, he hears Victor muttering a prayer to some divinity.

The morning after, Victor is gone, disappeared without a notice but that last request, leaving Yuuri to wake up to an empty room. Feeble sunlight streams through the window onto Yuuri's face. The shape of Victor's body is still warm Victor's clothes are still on the floor. The suitcase lays there too, half-opened, as Yuuri sits in bed and watches the door, for any time now Victor will open it and they’ll have breakfast splayed on the mattress. 

It’is just a fantasy. He knows Victor hasn't gone for a stroll outside, that Victor had made his choice long before this last night, whether he would remember or not, but still praying Fate to be conceded another day. 

At the laboratory, they ask Yuuri why Victor isn't with him; to which he invents an excuse about a sudden stomach flu, trying to buy time. In any case, they are all too concerned with the Dark Shape to see through the lie. 

Yuuri prays it isn't too late for Victor, while new stars disappear and the Dark Shape passes Neptune, Uranus, and finally stops.

Its shrinking happens so fast it can be seen with a naked eye, no need for fancy instrument. 

Both scientists and amateurs scramble to record the phenomenon. Or someone will say it never happened.

The scars left, however, aren't so easily cancelled. 

It doesn't take long before realizing the satellites of which the signal was lost are gone forever, taking back space exploration of ten years at best. Some stars are gone forever from the sky, their Fate soon followed by some minor planet outside the Solar System. 

The Polaris is only the shadow of the guiding star that once was.

Above all, Victor's disappearance cuts into Yuuri's soul as much as it does with the scientific community, when Yuuri finally has a to admit the truth. The Norwegian police has interrogated him on the subject and kept his passport into custody for a while, before having to admit his innocence for lack of evidence.

The flight back to the US is lost in a trance, the awareness of his and Victor's true identity putting everything else under a new light. There is nothing magic or glamorous in being a reincarnation, no matter the interesting plots in some literary works. 

At least, his still present routine, personal loss or not, leaves little space to dwell in the melancholy of what may have been. There are conferences to attend, articles to publish, sudden seminars to prepare and exams to pass. 

In all this, Yuuri finds himself being the unwilling centre of attention; sometimes because the remnants of Victor’s light still illuminates him, sometimes shining in his own right. All attempts to step back into the shadows result in a failure.

As for having being, supposedly, the last person to have seen Victor, it spurts a whole plethora of articles. Some smell of gossip, others try to be neutral, other still are openly accusatory.

Yuuri ignores them all, closing the door in the face of any journalist asking for an interview. 

What good will it do? He can't say the truth and his personal life is something not for the public to know. How it was to work with Victor? The best experience he could dream of as a fellow scientist. Was he surprised by Victor's disappearance? Who wasn't? 

What about the ‘why’? No answer.

Voices say you were close. Do you miss him? No answer. 

Yuuri doesn't cry. He has cried often, before, after his numerous failures, usually hidden from sight. But for Victor he can't shed a single tear. A life may seem nothing compared to eternity, but it's still long.

Yuuri's remnants years of doctorate roll on the calendar. He still works on the Fermi acceleration, he still teaches, he still leaves behind a whole queue of broken hearts. He still dreams about the moon. He won some minor prizes for his discoveries and articles. His name is on books now, the unpleasantries of his connection with Victor and his disappearance shading only partially his overall scientific glory. 

He doesn't expect to recognize Victor's aura in a crowded park. The city is no more the same from when their paths crossed for the last time, nor Yuuri is the same man.

He tightens his grip on the painting brush, splashes staining his hands and cheeks, eyes not daring to leave the canvas. Painting wasn't in the plans until Yuuri discovered how good of an outlet it could be. Now he paints his dreams and his memories as an hobby.

Victor's presence at his back feels so familiar it almost hurts. Yuuri's eyes fill of years of repressed tears. A giant drop of colour ends on his pants. 

"Weren't the throne room walls ivory?"

Oh gods, how much he missed his voice. Sobs and hiccups strangle Yuuri's own. "You never did see the throne room."

Next, he is gripping to Victor's shirt for dear life, not caring a bit to see how much he changed, uncontrollable hiccups shaking his whole body. He must be making a mess on Victor’s clothes. Not that he cares one bit. 

The same goes for wondering why Victor is there, in a town park, and not checking on a Doomsday Hound in the depth of the night. Still, Yuuri cannot ignore his worries for too long. 

It takes all of his willpower to disentangle from the embrace. Victor glows with new light.

"How?" Is what Yuuri manages to say. Glancing up to the sky is a too big temptation. 

"It can't get loose," Victor's anticipates Yuuri's fears. He gently cups his cheeks until their eyes meet. "This time I haven't escaped. I am here with the other gods' blessing."

Of Dazbog who conceded him to be on Earth for six months every year. Of Zorya Utrennaya and Zorya Verchennaya who will double his surveillance during the period. Of his siblings who preferred more work than to hear him sulking all the time.

"Six months a year?" Yuuri repeats, slowly. Victor is hugging him again.

"I know it isn't much."

"It's more than I could bargain for."

Later, in a night of cuddles and reflection, Victor tells Yuuri the Zoryas, mother and aunt, have accepted to turn his soul into a star, at his death.

Only if Yuuri ever wants. Being a star is a hard work and Victor would as sooner live another hundred lifetimes than forcing Yuuri into something of his disliking. 

"Yes."

Yuuri puts a finger on Victor’s lips to stop his blabbering. 

"Yes."

“You sure?”

Yuuri thinks he should ask Victor to marry him, one day, in this lifetime. He leans over to give Victor a quick, butterfly kiss.

“For a whole eternity with you, guarding the Doomsday Hound forever is a little price to pay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it’s the end of October already? 
> 
> This idea has been looming in my mind for a while now, constantly modified to better suit projects I never had the chance to take part in, in the end. Until, almost by chance, I came across a post about this bang and I took it as a sign of fate.
> 
> I’ve been in love with the legend of the Zoryas since I learnt about them courtesy of American Gods, which acted as gate to dive more into various types of folklores around the world. For those unfamiliar with slavic mythology, Dazbog is the god of light and sun, while the Zoryas are two (sometimes) three sister in the Ursa Minor constellation guarding over the Doomsday Hound, Simargl. Zorya Utrennaya is the Morning Star, while Zorya Verchennaya the Evening Star. According to a version of the myth they are married to Perun (another solar deity) and the stars are their offspring. 
> 
> In this fic, the Russian skaters are all the other stars composing the Ursa Minor. Yurio is the Polaris. Victor is Epsilon Ursa Minor, a star in the Ursa Minor tail, which I chose because it's a binary star with another star in proximity and it represented perfectly the Victuuri plus Makkachin combo.
> 
>    
> At the beginning Yuuri should’ve been an astronomer, but astrophysics had that something more that would help me making the story more intriguing.
> 
> The movie Yuuri refers to is “Searching for a friend for the end of the world.”
> 
> While the moon-people are based on the legend of Kaguya-hime, I tried as much as possible to avoid coding.
> 
> [greygerbil](http://greygerbil.tumblr.com), my artist, has been wonderful, capturing perfectly the details and atmosphere of the narration. You can see her works [here](http://greygerbil.tumblr.com/post/179454747086/another-sketch-for-gwen-chans-moon-in-our-eyes),[here](http://greygerbil.tumblr.com/post/179454705441/a-sketch-for-gwen-chans-moon-in-your-eyes-stars) and [here](http://greygerbil.tumblr.com/post/179454680601/a-picture-for-gwen-chans-lovely-victuuri-fic)
> 
> Finally, a huge thank you to [curlavski](http://curlavski.tumblr.com) for beta-ing and to [Basia](https://belovedyuuri.tumblr.com) and [Gia](http://makkarons.tumblr.com) for having supported me in times of doubts
> 
> Come to say hello at [gwen-chan](http://gwen-chan.tumblr.com) or on discord at GwenChan #9085


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